What Is Wrong with Intimate Partner Abuse and Why It's Criminalization Might Not Be Right

Authors

Galia Schneebaum, Reichman University (IDC Herzliya)

Abstract

Considering a contemporary debate between United States ("US') and United Kingdom ("UK') approaches, this article probes the appropriateness of criminalizing non-violent abuse in intimate partner relationships. Criminal lawyers in the US and the UK are divided on prohibiting intimate partner abuse. Whereas US jurisdictions retain a traditionalfocus on physical injury, England and Wales enforce a novel prohibition on "controlling or coercive behavior," covering conduct such as micromanaging intimate partners'schedules or restricting their behaviors through rules. While the US approach has been criticized as conservative, this article questions the progressiveness of the UK approach. It suggests, first, that in prohibiting "controlling behavior," this approach presumes patriarchal control to be effective in the lives of intimate partners, notwithstanding its formal abolishment. Second, it suggests that such control is considered abusive because it manifests a supposedly oppressive use of authority. Drawing on these insights, the article reassesses the aptness of criminalizing non-violent, intimate partner abuse. It concludes that in prohibiting abuse of patriarchal authority, the law implicitly reaffirms its validity. Therefore, the UK approach might inadvertently result in the endurance rather than the disappearance of patriarchy, and in that, it is less consistent than is its US counterpart with criminal law's moral assumption of agency.

Disciplines

Comparative and Foreign Law | Education Law | International Law | Law | Law Enforcement and Corrections

Recommended Citation

Galia Schneebaum, What Is Wrong with Intimate Partner Abuse and Why It's Criminalization Might Not Be Right, 5 Cardozo Int’l & Compar. L. Rev. 41 (2021).
Available at: https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/ciclr/vol5/iss1/4